


Blink And You'll Miss It

by theianitor



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Australia GP 2019, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Eye Color, Fluff, Hiding soulmate marks, M/M, Mentions others, Mutually Unrequited, Racing setting, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, hinted pairings, it's mostly sweet with pockets of worry, mentions SO MANY OTHERS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23964916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theianitor/pseuds/theianitor
Summary: Soulmates were discussed at school, of course, and it was common to ask your friends and family what it felt like when you matched, when your eyes shifted from their mismatched state and you and your soulmate both got your real eye color in both eyes. The only problem was that it seemed to vary so greatly from person to person that there was hardly anything reliable to say about it.The experts all agreed on one thing though: it was not a question of if, but when.
Relationships: Jenson Button/Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton/Nico Rosberg
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70





	Blink And You'll Miss It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobinJuncadella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinJuncadella/gifts).



> Hi! I hope you like this because you so deserve a nice story. There's a fair few ships in here, and a few not-ships-yet... I really hope you like it, and it was good fun to write. :) Enjoy! <3

Albert Park, 2019. An ordinary Wednesday.

There were still people rushing around with tool belts and huge crates, setting up the last of the necessities for the upcoming race. Lando made his way down towards the back of the garages doing his best to keep out of the way of the workers, but he found himself repeatedly stunned by the _largeness_ of it all. He’d been racing since he was just a kid, but Formula One was the big time, the top of the tops.

Stopping to look at some of the stands, visible in the distance between two buildings, he tried to imagine sitting up there instead. Those were probably pretty pricy tickets, with a great view of the pit lane and even if the weather got worse, those people would be safely under cover. The open stands and the people who would be setting up their own little deck chairs and stuff on the grassy hills wouldn’t be so lucky. Still, the forecast said blue skies and sunny days all weekend, so the lawns looked like pretty nice spots, dotted with a few shading trees here and there, a perfect place for a nice picnic...

“Oi, out the way!”

Lando was jerked out of his wandering thoughts by the yell, hopping aside and calling his apologies to two workmen rolling an enormous black box towards the pitlane entrance.

“Might wanna stay to the sides there, mate,” the man at the back of the box said as they rolled past. He sounded rushed, but not unkind, and Lando smiled apologetically.

“Sorry,” he repeated. The man nodded at him and kept pushing along, his colleague steering and calling to someone else to get out of their way.

Lando looked after them for a little while, taking care to stand next to one of the pullout-ropes that were used to fence off areas outside all the garages, motorhomes, and team areas. The man had had very blue eyes.

_Matching,_ very blue eyes.

Without thinking about it, Lando rubbed at his right eye before he blinked a few times and then started walking again.

His own eyes didn’t match, at least not yet. One, his right, was the blue-greenish color he’d always felt was more ‘his’, for no particular reason other than that he thought it fitted him better than the other one. His left eye was greener, still blue but _greener_ , and Lando thought it didn’t quite go with the rest of him, so he’d taken to thinking his left eye was the one belonging to his soulmate. The one that would shift away when he met them.

Not that he minded the color, not as such. But he already just _knew_ that the color looked better on his soulmate, whoever they might be.

Ducking into an open door, Lando dodged between members of the McLaren crew, saying his hellos and waving. He didn’t know all the guys yet, but he figured he would soon enough. On his way back out into the sunlight of the pit lane, he noticed Carlos on the other side of the garage and stopped briefly.

The Spaniard was in a team shirt too, looking calm and composed as he talked to someone over on his side. He looked up like he’d felt Lando’s eyes on him and jutted his chin up in greeting, obviously not having time to talk right now. Feeling a little self-conscious, Lando ran a hand through his hair. Carlos always looked so put together. Then again, he wasn’t a rookie anymore; he already knew what to do, all the little tricks of handling the F1 paddock. Continuing outdoors and letting the warm rays of the sun hit him again, Lando made a mental note to comb his hair properly tomorrow morning.

“There he is!” a familiar voice called, making Lando shield his eyes to see properly. Off to the side, two people had perched themselves on a couple of the black boxes that had almost ran him over earlier. George was sitting in the sun with his sleeves pulled up to his shoulders, and Alex had been lying down but was sitting up to wave at him.

“Hi guys,” Lando said. George leaned over the side of his box and pulled up a bottle of water from the cooler, shaded side, handing it to Lando. “Thanks.”

“Bit different, isn’t it?” George said, smiling and motioning vaguely at the pit lane. Lando looked back over his shoulder at the activity and took a seat on the next box over, letting his legs remain in the sunlight while he got some merciful shade.

“Yeah, a bit.”

It felt a bit like the first day back at school after the summer holidays, he thought to himself. George was wearing a pair of big, round sunglasses but Lando could tell he had given him a once-over, checking if he’d gotten any more tan, any taller, or if his eyes had turned yet. Lando didn’t know if George could even tell, his eyes weren’t that different, but he knew his friend had definitely checked.

Most people did.

“It’s not _that_ different,” Alex said, squinting back at the pit lane too. “Just... bigger.” He shrugged, but Lando could tell it was, at least in part, faking confidence. Alex would admit to being nervous if he asked, but he saw no reason to. They were _all_ nervous, and they all had good reason to be. It didn’t need to be dissected.

As Alex turned to fluff up the team sweater he’d been using for a pillow, Lando caught sight of something that made him gasp.

“You found them?!” he said, before he could stop himself.

George shook his head with a smirk, and Alex sighed.

“Told you he’d notice,” George said.

“Yeah but he was quicker than you thought,” Alex replied, looking straight at Lando, who couldn’t stop staring.

For as long as he’d known Alex, he’d had one dark brown eye and one strikingly pale blue one. Since Alex was Thai, with tan skin and dark hair, Lando had always assumed his soulmate must be the one with the blue eyes. But now, Alex was looking at him with two matching eyes, both a deep, rich brown. While it suited him, it was a jarring change.

“I’m wearing contacts,” Alex finally said, looking away. “I didn’t want it to be a big deal anymore.”

“It’s...” Lando wasn’t sure how to tell him it was almost more noticeable like this. Alex’s fans from Formula 2 were sure to notice, as was anyone who brought up an older photo of him. “It’s different.”

“Told ya,” George said, still smirking. “People are gonna ask, trust me.”

“Lots of people use contacts though, Franz said I should.”

“Can I sit here?”

All three of them looked up to find Charles Leclerc standing behind them, glancing at the left-most travel-case.

“’Course, go ahead,” George said. Alex seemed glad the subject had been interrupted and lay back down. Lando nodded at Charles but didn’t say anything, giving him the same searching look he’d received when he approached the others.

While he didn’t look any different than Lando remembered, Charles _felt_ different now. It wasn’t quite fair, but that was just how it was; he was about their age, had similar history, and knew them all from before, but he while he had been with a backmarker-team the previous year, he was signed to a big team now.

“What are we talking about?” Charles said, hopping up to sit on the case, the heels of his sneakers hitting the box with dull thumps.

“Just enjoying some peace and quiet before everything gets started, mate,” George said.

They were all quiet for a moment, letting the sounds of the paddock carry on around them, before somebody started talking about the upcoming race weekend. Lando would have loved to talk more about Alex’s decision to cover his eyes, but it didn’t seem appropriate now. He supposed, in a way, he was lucky that his own colors weren’t so eye-catching.

Discreetly, he looked over at Charles, and concluded that he hadn’t found his soulmate yet either. One of his eyes was a clear, almost dark blue, while the other was blue but with a green tinge towards the pupil. He briefly wondered which color Charles would get to keep.

\--

Max wiped at his eyes again when the letters he was trying to read started to blur. He hadn’t practiced wearing his colored lenses enough during the off-season and now they were irritating his eyes, making him tear up. If he’d thought he could take them out without anyone telling on him, he would have.

“Here,” someone said from beside him, startling him. He looked up, blinking to see more clearly, and found Pierre next to him holding out a tissue.

“Thanks,” he grumbled, taking it and dabbing at his eyes. He couldn’t rub, that’d make his eyes all red, and people would ask.

“Are they the wrong strength?”

“What?” Max blinked again, and now Pierre came into sharper focus. He was looking at him curiously, his mismatched eyes moving quickly as he studied Max’s face.

“Your contacts, are they the wrong strength for you?”

“No,” Max said shortly, looking down. How could he even _begin_ to explain? It had been so long that he thought he’d be used to it, but in reality, the lenses still bothered him and every time it took hours to get his eyes to stop watering. And they were only there to cover the stupid _soulmate_ color.

Because his dad said he should focus on racing.

Because his dad said people might try to take advantage.

Because his stupid dad, with his stupid, unmatching eyes, didn’t believe in soulmates.

“No they’re just new,” he finally said. He met Pierre’s eyes. They were both blue, or at least blue-ish, one more saturated and solid, the other kind of speckled with gray or green, it was hard to tell under the garage lights. Still, similar enough to get away with... and not even close to what Max saw when he looked in the mirror every morning.

Max couldn’t help but glance around. The lenses were close enough to the color he figured was his own. Underneath one of them though, he was hiding a light ambery brown, a bit like tea with just a splash of milk. His sister had described it like that once, and since then he couldn’t help but think of it that way.

Outside the garage, Robert Kubica walked past with someone from Williams, talking and gesticulating as they went. He noticed Max watching and nodded at him and Pierre, and both the younger drivers nodded back. His eyes matched, Max knew. It was always talked about when somebody met their soulmate, and Kubica had two green eyes. It made sense that he did; he was old enough that he _should_ have met his soulmate. It wasn’t a question of _if_ , but _when_ , after all. Max was still a bit young for it, so his blue eyes caused more questions than they answered.

As Pierre made his way back to his side of the garage, Max went back to his papers. It wasn’t an _if_ , he reminded himself. It was a _when_. He _would_ meet his soulmate, and they would accept each other, and he could stop wearing the stupid colored lenses.

Somehow, he couldn’t say why, something felt different now. Like there was a change in the air. Like something was going to happen.

Max took a deep breath and blinked again, trying to focus.

\--

“You ready for another year of this then?”

Jenson laughed as DC clapped him hard on the shoulder. A few of the drivers-turned-press-people had found each other in one of the little seating areas and started regaling each other with tall tales; if they weren’t careful, they’d all miss their interviews and appointments today. That, or talk some people into an early grave, if Steve’s continued spluttering and wide-eyed disbelief was anything to go by. He wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, but old Formula One stories were obviously a little much for his sensibilities this early in the morning.

“It’s a lot easier on this side of the pits, you’ve gotta admit,” Mark said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his long legs out.

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to go for a little spin out there,” DC said, shooting Mark a challenging smile. “No cameras or nothing, just taking one of the new cars for a little go.”

“Nah mate,” Mark said dismissively, not moving beyond waving his hand like he was wafting DC’s suggestion away. “I’m leaving that to the professionals, I’ll ask ‘em how they thought it went afters.”

“Did you hear that there’s already been a matching?” Martin Brundle leaned over from his table as if he were trying to be discreet, sharing something confidential. Behind him, Damon Hill seemingly couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at his colleague.

“What, that girl at McLaren?” Jenson asked.

Being a former team member came with some privileges and that morning he’d sneaked in to get a cup of coffee from their very secret special stash and catch up on the latest gossip. One of the women who tracked data for the team had gone out to dinner with a few other crew members the night before, and had shown up to the paddock this morning smiling ear-to-ear and showing off her now-matching eyes to the whole team. He didn’t know her soulmate, beyond that he worked for Renault. Walking past the all-yellow garage there was one pit-crew member who seemed to be drawing a lot of looks, snickering, and slaps on the back; Jenson assumed that was the guy in question.

“What?” Martin’s eyes got wide at this hint of fresh rumors.

“Nothing, who were you talking about?”

Martin delved into a long-winded telling of how two of Racing Point’s crew had finally found each other. It wasn’t exactly news. Every year these large gatherings of people would lead to a few soulmates matching, but it was always nice to hear when it happened, and most people took it as a good sign when it did.

Looking around while Martin talked, Jenson noted very few non-matching eyes in their midst. He supposed they were all at an age where most people had already found their match. Absentmindedly, he spun the gold band on his left ring finger with his thumb. It still felt a little strange, somehow a clearer signal than when his eyes had changed color all those years ago. If they hadn’t said anything, it would have taken ages for people to even notice.

“Speaking of mates...” Mark said, interrupting Martin and nudging Jenson’s leg with his foot. Jenson spun around to look at him and Mark shook his head, DC snickering beside him.

“Over there,” he pointed to three figures in red walking towards the pit lane. Jenson quickly got up and got out from under the parasols, walking towards them and only just hearing Mark saying something about him possibly forgetting his own head if it wasn’t attached.

“Hey,” he said when the figures got closer, quickly greeting Anti and Britta before pulling Sebastian in for a hug. They were staying in the same room and had only parted a few hours earlier, but it didn’t matter. Something about meeting in the paddock would always be a little special.

Looking into Seb’s eyes Jenson was once again reminded of how nearly they might have missed each other: their eye colors had been close enough to matching even before they’d realized they were soulmates. Both had blue eyes with hints of grey, Seb’s perhaps a tad more blue, his own a bit more grey, but close enough that it hadn’t made a huge difference when they’d matched. Well. Not a huge _visual_ difference, Jenson thought. Feeling-wise, the difference was enormous.

“Are you having a slow day?” Seb asked, stretching a little to give him a kiss, tilting his head so the cap wouldn’t get in his way.

“No? How so?”

“All your guys are watching us.” Seb turned to wave at the gathered press-people, giving them a little smile. Most of them looked away, Martin had the decency to look a tad embarrassed, but DC waved back merrily and Mark raised his hand to greet his former teammate. Jenson chuckled.

“I suppose it’s a bit slow, yeah.”

“Well, let me go do my job, and maybe we can make something for you to talk about later,” Seb said, brushing his hand down Jenson’s arm.

“Make it good, or I’ll have to talk about how you didn’t even bother to shave for the first race of the season,” Jenson countered, gently stroking Seb’s cheek.

Britta snorted with laughter and covered it up with an unconvincing cough. Anti was suddenly very interested in the closest motorhome.

“I can’t believe I _married_ you.” Seb shook his head with an exaggerated pout.

“To be fair, I can’t either,” Jenson agreed with a grin. They kissed again, a short peck, and then Seb was off. Jenson went to resume his seat with the others and endure his fair share of teasing.

\--

Turning his face this way and that, he tried unbuttoning the top button of his shirt again.

Yes. It looked better like this. More relaxed. Neat, but casual.

He turned his head again, checking it from another angle. Yes. This was better.

As always, he ended up looking at his own eyes in the mirror.

Nico Rosberg had, for all intents and purposes, matching eyes. They were steel gray with just the slightest hint of blue in them, and he’d often been told that they were ‘striking’.

Only they weren’t his. Not quite. He’d made sure the contact lenses matched his natural eye color as perfectly as possible, but they were only there to cover his right eye.

He’d been wearing contacts since he’d been a teenager, in part as a signal that he didn’t want to discuss his status. He’d always wanted to keep the focus on the racing, not his personal life. Also, he’d worn contacts because his soulmate had asked him to. Together, they’d discussed it time and time again, argued and agreed and argued again, and used every damn excuse in the book for why they both struggled along, hiding their mismatching eyes as best they could from the world.

It would just complicate things.

It would distract from their jobs.

_They_ knew and that was most important.

And lately because they weren’t meant to be anyway.

Nico leaned in closer to the mirror, bracing his hands against the sink. It was blissfully cold in the bathroom, compared to the glaring sunlight outside, and since he was alone he’d taken the time to make sure his clothes and hair looked okay. But now his eyes felt _wrong_.

The matching could be stopped. Some people didn’t believe that, but it was true. If you met your soulmate and you both resisted, it just... didn’t happen. Most people tended to be happy to find their soulmate though, so matching wasn’t a problem. Usually, he figured, it just sort of happened. But it could be stopped. That was as inexplicable as everything else about it.

It had been a recurring feeling over the years, and since he’d stopped racing, it had only gotten more intense. Him having a soulmate hadn’t distracted him from anything, not really. If anything, their work had distracted him from what was truly important. But they’d been equally to blame for the status quo, and he knew that only too well.

He looked at his own eyes again. They looked _fake_ to him, and he knew people knew they were contacts, there to hide what a fair few had already speculated about. He didn’t want to feed the rumor mill but suddenly, what he wanted most of all, was just to be free of it.

With quick, determined movements he took the little lens-case out of his inside pocket and opened the two lids. He washed his hands again, and then carefully, with the help of the mirror, got both of his colored lenses out, sealing them away and putting the little case back in his pocket. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking in the mirror again.

His left eye was almost the exact grey shade of the contact lens – not quite perfect, but almost. His natural color was a bit more _alive_ somehow. He knew that color to be his, but he didn’t know if his eyes would ever naturally match. For once, he felt like he truly didn’t care.

Shifting his gaze to his right eye, he almost looked away when met with the brown, so dark it almost looked black against his otherwise pale face and light hair. He took another deep breath.

To hell with all of it. He didn’t want to hide anymore.

\--

George and Lando made their way slowly down the pit lane, dawdling in the sun even after Lando had gotten a message to head back to the garage. They made small-talk and stayed out of the crew members’ way, nodding and waving their hellos at people they recognized.

“Hola, kiddies!”

They both greeted Daniel Ricciardo, quickly heading in the opposite direction and only shouting at them and shooting them a huge grin before he was hurrying away.

“ _He_ doesn’t wear contacts,” Lando said, glancing after Daniel.

“Well he’s Daniel, isn’t he?” George replied, grabbing Lando’s arm and pulling him aside while a group of people wearing Red Bull-shirts made their way past with long crates with what looked like scaffolding inside. “He could go out in his undies and just call ‘em shorts, and I reckon there wouldn’t be too too many questions.”

As long as Lando had known about him, Daniel had acted like his mismatched eyes were completely normal. Which they were, but still. He seemed so relaxed about it, comfortably asking photographers if they preferred a specific side of him, proudly turning this way and that and showing his light brown, almost amber-looking eye and his gray-ish blue eye about equally. Lando couldn’t even imagine having two so very different eyes. It wasn’t uncommon, but _still_.

“Lots of people have it, you know,” George said as if he’d been reading his mind. “Like Kimi.”

“Yeah but he’s _Kimi_ ,” Lando argued.

Even when Kimi had come to Formula 1, he’d refused to hide his mismatched eyes. His left was a bright, pale, icy blue, and the right one was, by comparison, so dark brown it almost looked black. Speculations had come and gone through the years, the gossip columns going so far as to name names and run polls: everyone from Juan Pablo Montoya and Fernando Alonso to Lewis Hamilton had already come up as possible ‘suspects’. Kimi himself had made a point of never talking about it at all, and still shut down any interview as soon as anybody asked him about it. Most people had learned, but he’d still done it twice the previous year.

“Well Antonio did too, and that wasn’t a big deal.”

“His are even now though...”

Antonio had been lucky enough to find his soulmate two years earlier. The only bad thing to come of it was that his team had a pretty strict no-soulmates-policy, and a matching wasn’t something that could be kept quiet for very long, so now his soulmate was on the team basically in name only, doing IndyCar the rest of the time.

They walked along in silence, Lando thinking about how it would feel to have it be so visible the reporters would ask all the time, George trying to think of more people on the blue-brown spectrum.

“Oh!” he suddenly said, stopping and pointing excitedly at Lando. “Those FE-guys! They both had it.”

“What?”

“Frijns and... eh... Antonio De La Costa!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not his name,” Lando said, shaking his head.

He’d read the news; it had only been a week since the two racers in the electric series had come out with their now-matching eyes, assuring the press that they had the full support of their teams and that they still intended to race as any other competitors would. Some journalists had already made comments about ‘knowing it all along’ and their soulmateship being ‘inevitable’ and ‘completely obvious’.

Lando knew there had been speculations before, when the two had been teammates, but their eyes hadn’t changed back then. They must have fallen in love recently and accepted being soulmates. That, or they had somehow kept from matching. If so, it must have been incredibly hard.

\--

Lewis stared as Nico passed the garage. He couldn’t get away right now, but all the noise and talk around him seemed to fade to nothing as the blond passed by outside, looking really good in his matching blazer and pants, his designated TV-outfit. Nico turned his head, looked at Lewis for a second, nodded once, and then moved on.

Lewis felt his blood turn to ice. One of Nico’s eyes had been the cold grey he always saw when he thought of him, which was probably more often than he’d ever admit to any living soul. But the other one was so _dark_ , standing out against his light skin and hair. He thought it only looked brown because Nico was out in the sun, and probably also because he _knew_ that color so incredibly well.

It was the color he saw in the mirror every time he looked at himself.

They both knew it. They’d known it for years, and they would have done something about it if...

If only things had been different.

If only _everything_ had been different.

The team had speculated about it on and off in the beginning, but they both dodged the questions like the pros they were and soon enough their colored lenses had silenced anyone who asked. He supposed people knew they were wearing them, but not _why_. That had always suited them best.

Still, they both _knew_. They’d agreed to not let feelings get involved and it had still been a really hard time, lined with arguments and fights, mistakes made both in their work and in their private lives.

They still lived close to each other, but they spoke a lot less these days. It was like a magnetic pull. They’d never quite been able to stay away, but when they got too close the magnetism turned and they would ward each other off.

Lewis caught sight of his reflection in one of the blank screens on the wall. Perhaps Nico had just gotten tired of the contacts and always being careful.

Maybe he wanted to finally do something about it.

Lewis sighed heavily. He had to admit he was kind of tired too.

\--

“This seat taken?” Jenson asked, sitting down before he’d gotten anything close to a response. Kimi cracked one eye open and glanced at him, giving him the slightest snort of amusement.

“Why did you even ask if you were going to just sit down any way?”

“Just being polite.”

Kimi snorted again, but closed his eyes and went back to the relaxing silence. He’d found a spot that was well enough away to ensure some privacy, at least today, when there was only crew and a few press-people around. A couple of nice deck chairs that put him in mind of Fernando’s joking around, and a parasol to both hide him away and keep the sunlight off his face.

“So, how does it feel, being back again?”

Kimi opened one eye again. “Are you trying to have an interview?”

“No, no, I was just asking.” The Brit raised his hands defensively. “You’re the resident old-timer now, just thought I’d ask, you know.”

Kimi let silence fall. He and Jenson had known each other long enough that Jenson knew he wasn’t being snubbed, but that Kimi just didn’t have anything to add. It was quiet for a while, Jenson getting comfortable in his chair, sinking down against the stripy fabric and moving his feet back and forth as if he was just getting a feel for the sunlight.

“Did you see Nico?” Jenson asked when it had been quiet for a minute.

“No?”

“He’s taken the contacts out.”

“Hm.”

“I didn’t ask but I guess he got tired of hiding it.”

“Mm-hm.”

It got quiet again, but Kimi could tell there was more coming. He fought to keep the smile off his face, counting down the seconds to see how long it would take before Jenson spoke again.

“Your eyes haven’t changed,” the Brit finally said, as if that summarized his thoughts and questions.

“Really,” Kimi said dryly.

“So you’re telling me you _still_ don’t know who they are?”

“I’m not telling you shit,” Kimi said, finally sitting up and opening his eyes fully. The sunlight was very bright and he squinted as he adjusted to it. A nap would have been nice but Jenson seemed hell-bent on talking.

For now, however, the Brit just nodded to himself like he was confirming his own thoughts. He too had suspected Kimi’s old teammates, or at least someone in the paddock, and had finally more or less given up on his speculations and decided that Kimi, if he knew, was okay to wait regardless. Or maybe he didn’t know, in which case he was obviously quite comfortable with that too; the only certainty was that he _would_ meet that special someone at some point. Jenson couldn’t imagine himself waiting comfortably for Sebastian, but maybe that was in part because he knew what he had _now_ , and wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

“You know,” Jenson said after a while, still smiling, “Russell asked me how it feels when the colors change.”

Kimi raised an eyebrow.

“Not that you’d know, of course,” Jenson teased, winking at him, “but I thought it was interesting that he’d even ask. They’re very forward, these rookies.”

“Hm,” Kimi said, looking towards the paddock. He hadn’t really paid them much mind; there was somebody new most years, all you could do was be nice and polite to them and hope they were good racers. They mostly seemed to be decent enough guys, and they knew each other from before so they had an easier time fitting in.

“I think he might have gotten to where he’s got some idea who his soulmate is,” Jenson continued. “I told him they both needed to be sure before anything happened, I mean, it’s very rare that it just _happens_. It’s not _magic_ , after all.”

“It is a bit magic.”

“Yeah, I guess, a bit,” Jenson agreed with a shrug, “but...”

Whatever he was going to say was cut short by approaching footsteps, and they both looked over to find Sebastian making his way up the little hill. As soon as he came up, Jenson stood to offer him his chair.

“Sit, sit,” Seb said, sinking down to sit cross-legged on the grass, making sure he was shaded by the parasol. “What are we talking about?”

“Oh you know, this and that,” Jenson said with a shrug. “Russell asked me how the matching feels.”

“That’s daring,” Seb said, pulling out a blade of grass and attempting to hold it between his thumbs so he could blow on it and make a noise. “What did you tell him?”

Soulmates were discussed at school, of course, and it was common to ask your friends and family what it felt like when you matched. The only problem was that it seemed to vary so greatly from person to person that there was hardly anything reliable to say about it. Some people reported feeling a slight pain, or tenseness, or a headache, whereas others felt an itch, a tingle, or nothing at all. Some people woke up with their colors already in place, some could watch it happen in real time over a matter of seconds or minutes. For some people it took days for the colors to fade and settle.

Jenson and Sebastian had been a couple for one month and three days when they’d kissed, both closing their eyes, feeling a slight pressure, and then opening their eyes to meet their matched colors.

“I told him it didn’t just _happen_ , but that when it’s about to happen he’d probably know and have to be ready for it.”

Sebastian smiled at Jenson, thinking there were a fair few people in the paddock who still had so much to look forward to, their matches probably much closer than they could ever know. Fate usually knew what it was doing; some people just took a little longer to accept it.

“Be ready?” Kimi asked, looking at his two friends and their matching eyes, feeling a little intrigued in spite of himself.

“Yeah,” Seb said, looking down at the lush grass. “Because if you blink, you might miss it.”

\- The End -

**Author's Note:**

> All in good fun, as per usual! :)  
> Thanks for the read! <3


End file.
